Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1887-06-29
ONLY A BRAKEMAN.
A Plea for the Faithful Men Who Rfsk
Their Lives Every Day.

A Plea for the Faithful Men Who Rtsk
Their Lives Every Dav.
According to the Chicago Herald an in
stance of the cruelty of our modern civil
ization aud its infinitely diversified apq
pliances and customs is found in the fact
that the death of railway employe,
through ono of the MINOR casualties of his.
calling, is no longer considered worthy of
mention in the news columns Of a metro
poiitan newspaper; or, If mentioned at
all, line is generally sufficient to
chron icle the bare fact details being ut
terly neglected. In the dispatches it used
to be:
SPY broken rail seven freight cars
were thrown of the track near this placs
last night and their contents, consisting
of valuable merchandise, almost de-
stroyed. The loss of the company will
reach Si5,00o Passenger trains were de-
layed nearly an hour. A rigid investiga-
ton will follow. One brakeman was
killed."
Formerly minor accidents to employees
were telegraphed to city papers, but now
all correspondents are instructed to omit
sending intelligence concerning tbs
common accidents Of the rail, IN which
employees only suffer, unless the fatali-
ties number more than one or some unusu-
al circumstanc or causes are present.
AlIuOSG every W6ck SOul0 runway en-
| ploye loses his lite or limb in the Chicago
railway yards without any mention OF the
casualty being made in tho city papers.
| This seems cruel, but the tru tn is that
sort of news is rarely worth printing.
| AS the world goes these items are unin-
portant, and newsmen neglect them. But
with passengers il is quite different. Tho
| commonest accident involving the safety
OF passenger or injury to his person is
! carefully investigated and reported. And
| justnow the papers are filed with articles
| demanding that the death-dealing stovo
shall be banis he'd; that safety gates be
put up at all crossings, and that every
| possible precaution be taken to secure tho
safety of the travelling public and for pc
| destrians and street travellers who must
| cross railway tracks. But not q word is
| heard in behalf of the employees, whom
| the juggernauts of the rail arc slaughter
ing and manning by the thousands every
year.
"Only a brakeman killed" What O
story the figures of q railway tell, and,
after all, there is nothing like cold figures
to point a moral or tell a tale In Massa-
chusetts last year only one passenger In
1854 ,25S was killed, and one in 9, 1866 93l in
! Jured. This ratio is not an alarming one,
but when we come To em.ployes the ratio
is very different. There were HS4 casual.
ties to sInployes, 63 of which were fatal.
On the Fitchburg road l employe out Of
every 81 was injured. On other roads
about in 120. Most of these casualties
were in coupling or uncoupling cars.
Forty eight, or nearly one week, were
injured in this way on one road. One can,
therefore, readily believe that on almost
any of our larger railways Of tho
| West a man day is the aver
age ratio of the rapacious demon
of car coupling Next como casual
ties TO trainmcn from falling from trains
over one a week in the whole State Of
Massachusetts, and probably twice OF
thrice as many as in Illinois. Take the
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy road for o
home instance, AID than the Darlington
there is no better managed road in tho
world. In recent year This road carried
in Illinois 2,T0,000 passengers. Half q
| dozen Of these were injured and none
killed. OF the 1850 engineers, firemen,
brakemen, baggagemen, switchmen and
conductors employed in Illinois, more
than 200 were killed or injured In fully
one-fourth of the cases the demon coup
ling was the agent of injury or death. All
along the line of every railway in the
country, and particularly in thu division
station towns, where many railway en-
ployes live, will be found small armies Of
widows, orphans and manned men.